Clessie Cummins Quotes
102 Clessie Cummins Quotes
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It has always been our aim and desire to pick out the best talent and train it to the best of our ability…
Clessie Cummins
[On his fascination with machines growing so powerful] Acted almost like a drug.
Clessie Cummins
[On dropping out of school when sixteen years old when enrolled in grade 8 for the third time.] Thoroughly disgusted with the entire educational system.
Clessie Cummins
[On Carl Fisher an Indianapolis Stoddard-Dayton distributor, who suspended a car from a hovering balloon to lure in customers.] His talent for sales promotion never ceased to amaze me.
Clessie Cummins
[On starting in 1908 a giant Packard car when an electric self-starter was not available until 1912 and having been a 110-pound teenager unable to hand-crank the heavy Packard engine after several tries – He dipped a rag into the gas task, squeezed a few drops of fuel into each cylinder priming cup, rocked the engine back and forth to draw fuel into the cylinders, closed the cups, rocked the engine again, and fired the ignition spark. It worked.] Astronomical odds against such a procedure being successful with a big engine.
Clessie Cummins
[On Linnie Sweeney taking a special interest in him with the loss of her own son] Because I was… apparently of a similar temperament [to Joe], Mrs Sweeney seemed to derive considerable comfort from my presence. I liked to whistle to myself as I worked on the family car or at other chores around the Irwin home. ‘Sometimes I can almost believe it’s Joe I hear,’ Mrs Sweeney confided.
Clessie Cummins
[On taking in 1912 a long boating expedition in with his brother in law Brainard McCoy, he often travelled in a sixteen foot motor craft he had built by hand and troubleshooted the notoriously fickle marine engine.] Every day brought a new and usually terrifying experience.
Clessie Cummins
[On diesels in 1912/1913 holding enormous potential as a way to] Meet operational demands with minimum maintenance attention and maximum economy.
Clessie Cummins
[On his modest business after W. G. Irwin letting him use a vacant forge building as an auto repair shop then when it grew replacing the building with a new structure big enough to house both the two Irwin family cars and his workshop] Cummins Machine Works.
Clessie Cummins
[On the Sweeneys and Millers returning from a summer holiday in 1917 to find the garage crammed with men and equipment and their own cards having been parked in a public garage.] They jokingly remarked to friends, that they’d soon be forced to move out of their house to make room for my work.
Clessie Cummins
[On compression ignition oil engines in 1914 - The] Best and safest in which a manufacturer could engage.
Clessie Cummins
[On the Hvid engine] Came to my attention… in the spring of 1918. At least eight or ten large and well known corporations that had large engineering departments had thoroughly investigated Hvid technology before deciding to invest.
Clessie Cummins
[Around 1918] No one in the immediate organization has ever built oil engines.
Clessie Cummins
[After having licensed the Hvid engine] After we had taken out a license and started to produce engines, we found that without an outlet for our engines we would have little or no chance to succeed.
Clessie Cummins
[In 1919 on Sears, Roebuck & Company (Then the nation’s largest retailer although a mail-order business) giving him a company transforming contract for 4,500 engines.] The proposal nearly took my breath away.
Clessie Cummins
The three year association [with Sears] cost Cummins Engine Company several thousand dollars. [On a recession in 1920-1921 and farmers returning their engines to Sears after harvesting season due to a misuse of a Sears loophole.] Prices had to be slashed to get business at all, and we were caught with a heavy inventory on our hands.
Clessie Cummins
We were assured that in taking out a license to build this engine we would be getting a highly refined and profitable design, and that there were numerous economies that would be possible, due to standardization of design, and of which we would all be able to partake. We were all more or less misled as to the practicability of the engine which we had decided to build.
Clessie Cummins
During the time in which we were building the Hvid type engine, I constantly had in mind an engine that would not be subject to the weaknesses in principle that were developing in the Hvid type engine.
Clessie Cummins
We had convinced ourselves, that there was no possible chance to work out our salvation as long as we continued with the Hvid engine.
Clessie Cummins
[In 1922 to Hans L Knudsen Cummins’ first formally trained engineer.] Undertake the design of the engine and join the Cummins Engine Co. in charge of engineering.
Clessie Cummins
Our original understanding and agreement… was that the Development Company would license various other builders and gradually build up a profitable return from royalties.
Clessie Cummins
[In 1922 on fleet owners with hundreds of boat possibly switching to Cummins diesels if it performed well after he personally had to supervise the installation of a boat engine order in New Orleans] There is some very keen rivalry here amongst the boat owners, and no small amount of jealousy, which I see will work to our advantage.
Clessie Cummins
[On the marine power being a lucrative, recession proof market in 1922] If we go after it and from now on I am going after it and furthermore I am going to get it.
Clessie Cummins
Counterweights started flying off and cutting engines in two and taking out the sides of boats and tops of cabins, [even causing] a few injuries to some of the crew.
Clessie Cummins
[In late 1923 – The] Mechanical difficulty in the injector [was a problem] which can always be whipped.
Clessie Cummins
[In the early 1920s on his technological dead end on trying to produce a simpler and more trouble-free two-cycle (stroke) engine] We fell for this one… [A] Bug which seems to affect nearly all beginners [in] the Diesel field.
Clessie Cummins
Model TC [two-cycle engines], actually [had] more moving parts than in a good four cycle engine [but with] all the faults inherent in the two cycle.
Clessie Cummins
[In 1924 on installing a brand new Model F in a boat] This boat is driven with a New Cummins Oil Engine 12 ½ H.P. for 50 cents a day.
Clessie Cummins
[In 1925] Time after time it appeared that we had found the answer to the problems confronting us, but sooner or later it always resulted in failure. [But with the company’s excellent engine and well equipped and organized factory. The long siege was coming to an end.]
Clessie Cummins
[On developing the replacement engine to the Hvid one through the Oil Engine Development Company (OEDC)] In place of the $10,000.00 which we figured might finish the job, it required close to $100,000.00 to finish the development.
Clessie Cummins
The OEDC would charge Cummins Engine no license fee and only a nominal royalty for manufacturing rights. However because it would take several years for Cummins to repay OEDC for its work, it is considered only fair that the Development Company seek out outside licensees. Still the OEDC would license only such sizes as the Engine Company cannot or does not care to manufacture, and [would] protect the engine company through some sort of preferential royalty arrangement.
Clessie Cummins
[In August 1925 on meeting with the United States Shipping Board in New York] They load up their proposal with everything they can think of to protect themselves, but leave the manufacturer out in the cold.
Clessie Cummins
[On told by a manufacturer called Butler that there was a good opportunity in the locomotive market for his engine] He feels this is a very big field and that whoever is able to get in on it will have some fine business.
Clessie Cummins
[In early 1926 on the future of the Cummins Engine Company] We are just out of the early experimental stage. We hope though, that there will be sufficient proof within a comparatively short time to enable us to feel justified in undertaking the production on a much greater scale.
Clessie Cummins
[On his idea for a 6-7 hp engine similar to the original Sears model to W. G. Irwin] The beauty of this size is that there is absolutely no competition in it, except Hill. If you do not agree with us on this… you might as well be ready to face a real session, as we have enough ammunition laid up here to snow you under. It will be many more months before the big engine can be rolling.
Clessie Cummins
[On the opportunities in the locomotive railroad industry] When they plow a Diesel Engine into another, as they do the steam outfit occasionally, it surely means a new engine right off the bat. The first plan is to get engines out in some manner and establish ourselves… There are so many [diesel] failures that… they are all sceptical… It is pretty hard to sell anyone except a good friend on the oil engine idea at this time.
Clessie Cummins
[In 1927 on the high grade, tricky yacht marine business] All in all, it looks like we can count on a nice share of business in this big yacht field, as they are playing with people who have plenty of money and the desire for high speed is such that they will go to any extreme to get it.
Clessie Cummins
[To GM executive William S Knudsen in 1928 on General Motors Research Laboratories beginning a diesel research program and purchasing a Cummins Model U] I told Mr Knudsen that he might see one of our little engines running in the laboratory if he cared to, and he said that he already had seen it, and smiled – so I guess the information is spreading around up there pretty well.
Clessie Cummins
[To W G Irwin on February 26, 1929 – six days after the Cummins Engine Company’s ten year anniversary] I have worked hard, put in long hours and have enjoyed most of it. My salary is about what I could make in a good machine shop with no responsibility and with the knowledge that when the whistle blew, I would be free until another day.
Clessie Cummins
You can afford to wait, [but I cannot] pass up these opportunities to make a few much needed dollars.
Clessie Cummins
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